“A lucid, muscular, and often sly reflection” on the worth and purpose of historical scholarship by the award-winning author of The Third Reich Trilogy (Kirkus). In this volume, the renowned historian Richard J. Evans offers a fervent and deeply insightful defense of his craft and its importance to civilization. At a time when fact and historical truth are under unprecedented assault, Evans shows us why history is necessary. Taking us into the historians’ workshop, he offers a firsthand look at how good history gets written. In staunch opposition to the wilder claims of postmodern historians, Evans thoroughly dismantles the notion that a realistic grasp of history is impossible to attain. He then goes on to explain the deadly political dangers of losing a historical perspective on the way we live our lives. In the tradition of E.H. Carr’s What Is History? and G.R. Elton’s The Practice of History, Evans’ In Defense of History delivers “a model of lucid and intelligent historiographical analysis” (The Guardian, UK).
The acclaimed and comprehensive account of Germany's transformation under Hitler's total rule and the inexorable march to war, by the author of The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich at War. “[Evans's] three-volume history . . . is shaping up to be a masterpiece. Fluidly narrated, tightly organized and comprehensive.” —The New York Times "Mr. Evans's magisterial study should be on our shelves for a long time to come."—The Economist By the middle of 1933, the democracy of the Weimar Republic had been transformed into the police state of the Third Reich, mobilized around the cult of the leader, Adolf Hitler. In The Third Reich in Power, Richard J. Evans chronicles the incredible story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. As those who were deemed unworthy to be counted among the German people were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms, Hitler's drive to prepare Germany for the war that he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939. This is the fullest and most authoritative account yet written of how, in six years, Germany was brought to the edge of that terrible abyss.
The definitive account of Hitler's rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany, from the author of The Third Reich in Power and The Third Reich at War. "The clearest and most gripping account I've read of German life before and during the rise of the Nazis." —A. S Byatt, Times Literary Supplement "Impressive in its command of an immense literature, perceptive in analysis, fluent in style, and humane in judgment, this work could only have been produced by a master historian." —Sir Ian Kershaw "Brilliant." —Richard Cohen, The Washington Post There is no story in twentieth-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard J. Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans’s history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian’s art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.
In ruling against the controversial historian David Irving in his libel suit against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, last April 2000, the High Court in London labeled him a falsifier of history. No objective historian, declared the judge, would manipulate the documentary record in the way that Irving did. Richard J. Evans, a Cambridge historian and the chief advisor for the defense, uses this pivotal trial as a lens for exploring a range of difficult questions about the nature of the historian's enterprise. For instance, don't all historians in the end bring a subjective agenda to bear on their reading of the evidence? Is it possible that Irving lost his case not because of his biased history but because his agenda was unacceptable? The central issue in the trial -- as for Evans in this book -- was not the past itself, but the way in which historians study the past. In a series of short, sharp chapters, Richard Evans sets David Irving's methods alongside the historical record in order to illuminate the difference between responsible and irresponsible history. The result is a cogent and deeply informed study in the nature of historical interpretation.
Ê A bullet misses its target in Sarajevo, a would-be Austrian painter gets into the Viennese academy, Lord Halifax becomes British prime minister in 1940 instead of Churchill: seemingly minor twists of fate on which world-shaking events might have hinged. Alternative history has long been the stuff of parlor games, war-gaming, and science fiction, but over the past few decades it has become a popular stomping ground for serious historians. The historian Richard J. Evans now turns a critical, slightly jaundiced eye on a subject typically the purview of armchair historians. The bookÕs main concern is examining the intellectual fallout from historical counterfactuals, which the author defines as Òalternative versions of the past in which one alteration in the timeline leads to a different outcome from the one we know actually occurred.Ó What if Britain had stood at the sidelines during the First World War? What if the Wehrmacht had taken Moscow? The author offers an engaging and insightful introduction to the genre, while discussing the reasons for its revival in popularity, the role of historical determinism, and the often hidden agendas of the counterfactual historian. Most important, Evans takes counterfactual history seriously, looking at the insights, pitfalls, and intellectual implications of changing one thread in the weave of history. A wonderful critical introduction to an often-overlooked genre for scholars and casual readers of history alike.
A tremendous book, the biography of a city which charts the multifarious pathways from bacilli to burgomaster." - Roy Porter, London Review of Books Why were nearly 10,000 people killed in six weeks in Hamburg, while most of Europe was left almost unscathed? As Richard J. Evans explains, it was largely because the town was a “free city” within Germany that was governed by the “English” ideals of laissez-faire. The absence of an effective public-health policy combined with ill-founded medical theories and the miserable living conditions of the poor to create a scene ripe for tragedy. The story of the “cholera years” is, in Richard Evans’s hands, tragically revealing of the age’s social inequalities and governmental pitilessness and incompetence; it also offers disquieting parallels with the world’s public-health landscape today, including the current coronavirus crisis.
“A fascinating and instructive book . . . elegantly written and perceptive.” —Wall Street Journal “Kaleidoscopic . . . A fascinating exploration of individual agency that never loses sight of the larger context . . . Just the kind of probing, nuanced and unsparing study to help us think things through.” —The New York Times Through a connected set of biographical portraits of key Nazi figures that follows power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime’s leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question, how does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil? Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People, he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members. Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down. With a novelist’s eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal failings and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies—like Goebbels, the regime’s propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust’s chief architect—to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten—like the schoolteacher Julius Streicher and the actress Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler’s People lays bare the inner and outer lives of the characters whose choices led to the deaths of millions. Nearly a century after Hitler’s rise, the leading nations of the West are once again being torn apart by a will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous lives as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility—and even between pathological evil and rational choice—are never easily drawn.
The final volume in Richard J. Evans's masterly trilogy on the history of Nazi Germany traces the rise and fall of German military might, the mobilization of a ?people's community? to serve a war of conquest, and Hitler's campaign of racial subjugation and genocide Already hailed as ?a masterpiece? (William Grimes in The New York Times) and ?the most comprehensive history? of the Third Reich? (Ian Kershaw), this epic trilogy reaches its terrifying climax in this volume. Evans interweaves a broad narrative of the war's progress with viscerally affecting personal testimony from a wide range of people'from generals to front-line soldiers, from Hitler Youth activists to middle-class housewives. The Third Reich at War lays bare the dynamics of a nation more deeply immersed in war than any society before or since. Fresh insights into the conflict's great events are here, from the invasion of Poland to the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's suicide in the bunker. But just as important is the re-creation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime, staggering under pressure from Allied bombing and their own government's mounting demands upon them. At the center of the book is the Nazi extermination of Europe's Jews, set in the context of Hitler's genocidal plans for the racial restructuring of Europe. Blending narrative, description and analysis, The Third Reich at War creates an engrossing picture'at once sweeping and precise'of a society rushing headlong to self-destruction and taking much of Europe with it. It is the culmination of a historical masterwork that will remain the most authoritative work on Nazi Germany for years to come.
The final book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, Richard J. Evans's The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster shows how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself, shattering an entire continent. In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans's astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict - from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives - tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's plans for genocide and his eventual suicide. 'Masterly ... will surely be the standard history for many years to come ... This is a warning for the future, as much as a judgement on the past' ;Richard Overy, Daily Telegraph 'We all know how the story ends ... but Richard Evans brings it masterfully home ... magnificent';Peter Preston, Observer 'A chilling, brilliant read' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 'It is hard to do justice to the humanity and scholarly range of The Third Reich at War ... triumphant ... a masterful historical narrative and the most comprehensive account of Nazi Germany' Nicholas Stargardt, The Times Literary Supplement 'It gives the reader persuasive answers to questions asked for so long, that will continue to be asked, about this most violent and inexplicable of regimes' Mark Mazower, Guardian Sir Richard J. Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defence of History, Telling Lies about Hitler and the companions to this title, The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power.
An Economist Best Book of the Year “Sweeping . . . an ambitious synthesis . . . [Evans] writes with admirable narrative power and possesses a wonderful eye for local color . . . Fascinating.”—Stephen Schuker, The Wall Street Journal From the bestselling author of The Third Reich at War, a masterly account of Europe in the age of its global hegemony; the latest volume in the Penguin History of Europe series Richard J. Evans, bestselling historian of Nazi Germany, returns with a monumental new addition to the acclaimed Penguin History of Europe series, covering the period from the fall of Napoleon to the outbreak of World War I. Evans’s gripping narrative ranges across a century of social and national conflicts, from the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 to the unification of both Germany and Italy, from the Russo-Turkish wars to the Balkan upheavals that brought this era of relative peace and growing prosperity to an end. Among the great themes it discusses are the decline of religious belief and the rise of secular science and medicine, the journey of art, music, and literature from Romanticism to Modernism, the replacement of old-regime punishments by the modern prison, the end of aristocratic domination and the emergence of industrial society, and the dramatic struggle of feminists for women’s equality and emancipation. Uniting the era’s broad-ranging transformations was the pursuit of power in all segments of life, from the banker striving for economic power to the serf seeking to escape the power of his landlord, from the engineer asserting society’s power over the environment to the psychiatrist attempting to exert science’s power over human nature itself. The first single-volume history of the century, this comprehensive and sweeping account gives the reader a magnificently human picture of Europe in the age when it dominated the rest of the globe.
In ruling against the controversial historian David Irving, whose libel suit against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt was tried in April 2000, the High Court in London labeled Irving a falsifier of history. No objective historian, declared the judge, would manipulate the documentary record in the way that Irving did. Richard J. Evans, a Cambridge historian and the chief adviser for the defense, uses this famous trial as a lens for exploring a range of difficult questions about the nature of the historian's enterprise.
Richard J. Evans worked on the historical evidence on behalf of the defence during the Irving libel trial. In Telling Lies about Hitler, the author discusses the importance of historical writing and the social role of historians in such trials.
A master practitioner gives us an entertaining tour of the historian's workshop and a spirited defense of the search for historical truth. E. H. Carr's What Is History?, a classic introduction to the field, may now give way to a worthy successor. In his compact, intriguing survey, Richard J. Evans shows us how historians manage to extract meaning from the recalcitrant past. To materials that are frustratingly meager, or overwhelmingly profuse, they bring an array of tools that range from agreed-upon rules of documentation and powerful computer models to the skilled investigator's sudden insight, all employed with the aim of reconstructing a verifiable, usable past. Evans defends this commitment to historical knowledge from the attacks of postmodernist critics who see all judgments as subjective. Evans brings "a remarkable range, a nose for the archives, a taste for controversy, and a fluent pen" (The New Republic) to this splendid work. "Essential reading for coming generations."-Keith Thomas
In Rereading German History, first published in 1997, Richard J. Evans draws together his seminal review essays on the political, economic, cultural and social history of Germany through war and reunification. This book provides a study of how and why historians – mainly German, American, British and French – have provided a series of differing and often conflicting readings of the German past. It also presents a reconsideration of German history in the light of the recent decline of the German Democratic Republic, collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. Rereading German History re-examines major controversies in modern German history, such as the debate over Germany’s ‘special path’ to modernity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the discussions in the 1980s on the uniqueness or otherwise of Auschwitz. Evans also analyses the arguments over the nature of German national identity. The book offers trenchant and important analytical insights into the history of Germany in the last two centuries, and is ideal reading material for students of modern history and German studies.
In Rethinking German History, first published in 1987, Richard J. Evans argues for a social-historical approach to the German past that pays equal attention to objective social structures and subjective values and experiences. If German history has been seen as an exception to the ‘normal’ development of Western society, this is not least because historians have until recently largely failed to look beyond the world of high politics, institutions, organizations and ideologies to broader historical problems of German society and German mentalities. By applying and adapting approaches learned from French and British social history as they have been developed over the last quarter of a century, it is possible to achieve a rethinking of German history which does away with many of the textbook myths that have encrusted the historiogrpahy of Germany for so long. This book will be valuable for students of German history and politics, and brings together essays widely used in teaching. Its broad coverage of social history will also be useful to all those interested in contemporary historiography or the comparative study of European history.
Richard Evans revisits the sites of a selection of Greek and Roman battles and sieges to seek new insights. The battle narratives in ancient sources can be a thrilling read and form the basis of our knowledge of these epic events, but they can just as often provide an incomplete or obscure record. Details, especially those related to topographical and geographical issues which can have a fundamental importance to military actions, are left tantalisingly unclear to the modern reader. The evidence from archaeological excavation work can sometimes fill in a gap in our understanding, but such an approach remains uncommon in studying ancient battles. By combining the ancient sources and latest archaeological findings with his personal observations on the ground, Richard Evans brings new perspectives to the dramatic events of the distant past. For example, why did armies miss one another in what we might today consider relatively benign terrain? Just how important was the terrain in determining victory or defeat in these clashes.??The author has carefully selected battles and sieges to explore, first of all to identify their locations and see how these fit with the ancient evidence. He then examines the historical episodes themselves, offering new observations from first-hand study of the field of battle along with up-to-date photographs, maps and diagrams. In the process he discusses whether and how the terrain has since been changed by land use, erosion and other factors, and the extent to which what we see today represents a real connection with the dramatic events of the distant past. This first volume considers: ??1. The Greek Victory over the Persians at Marathon (490 BC)?2. Leonidas and his Three Hundred Spartans at Thermopylae (480 BC)?3. The Athenian Siege of Syracuse (414-413 BC)?4. The Syracusan Siege of Motya (397 BC)?5. Alexander's Defeat of Darius at Issus (333 BC)?6. Hannibal's Victory at Cannae (216 BC)?7. Titus Quinctius Flamininus and Philip V at Cynoscephalae (197 BC)?8. Gaius Marius' Victory over the Teutones at Aquae Sextiae (102 BC)?9. Octavian versus Antony and Cleopatra of Egypt: The Battle of Actium (31 BC)?10. The First Battle of Bedriacum (April AD 69)
Hailed as one of the most important works on the Hitler period, this is an “astonishing, compelling, and unnerving” portrait of life in Nazi Germany between 1936 and 1944—from a man who nearly shot Hitler himself (The New Yorker) Friedrich Reck might seem an unlikely rebel against Nazism. Not just a conservative but a rock-ribbed reactionary, he played the part of a landed gentleman, deplored democracy, and rejected the modern world outright. To Reck, the Nazis were ruthless revolutionaries in Gothic drag, and helpless as he was to counter the spell they had cast on the German people, he felt compelled to record the corruptions of their rule. The result is less a diary than a sequence of stark and astonishing snapshots of life in Germany between 1936 and 1944. We see the Nazis at the peak of power, and the murderous panic with which they respond to approaching defeat; their travesty of traditional folkways in the name of the Volk; and the author’s own missed opportunity to shoot Hitler. This riveting book is not only, as Hannah Arendt proclaimed it, “one of the most important documents of the Hitler period,” but a moving testament of a decent man struggling to do the right thing in a depraved world.
Richard Evans revisits the sites of a selection of Greek and Roman battles and sieges to seek new insights. The battle narratives in ancient sources can be a thrilling read and form the basis of our knowledge of these epic events, but they can just as often provide an incomplete or obscure record. Details, especially those related to topographical and geographical issues which can have a fundamental importance to military actions, are left tantalisingly unclear to the modern reader. The evidence from archaeological excavation work can sometimes fill in a gap in our understanding, but such an approach remains uncommon in studying ancient battles. By combining the ancient sources and latest archaeological findings with his personal observations on the ground, Richard Evans brings new perspectives to the dramatic events of the distant past. The campaigns and battles selected for this volume are: Ionian Revolt (499-493BC), Marathon (490 BC), Thermopylai (480 BC), Ilerda (49 BC) and Bedriacum (AD69).
Presenting the collected reviews of one of modern Germany's single most important historians, this book offers a comprehensive summary of Richard Evans' trenchant and important analytical points on Weimar, the Third Reich and revisionism.
This book surveys the history of the German family in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The contributions deal with the influence of industrialisation on family life in town and country, with rural families and communities under the impact of social and economic change, and with the role and influence of the family in the lives of men and women in the newly-emerged working class. Research on the history of the family had so far, at the point of this book’s publication in 1981, concentrated on England and France; this book adds an important comparative dimension by extending the discussion into Central Europe and bringing fresh evidence and interpretation to bear on the wider debate about the effects of industrialisation on family structure and family life as a whole. The authors approach the subject from a variety of perspectives, including social anthropology, oral history, economic history and feminist studies. This book is ideal for students of history, particularly the history of Germany.
This book, which was first published in 1988, deals with the neglected history of the lowest layers of German society, of marginal, outcast and deviant groups such as arsonists, witches, bandits, infanticides, poachers, murderers, prostitutes, vagrants and thieves, from the end of the thirteenth century to the middle of the twentieth. This book is ideal for students of history, particularly the German history.
In Hitler's Shadow, by noted historian Richard J. Evans, is a study of recent attempts by some West German historians to free the German conscience from guilt about its Nazi past. These new revisionists argue that Germans have no more to be ashamed of than other peoples: Auschwitz, they say, does not stand alone in history; it was merely one of a number of similar crimes, from Stalin's purges to the mass murders committed by Pol Pot. The German army was not trying to impose a genocidal dictatorship; it was fighting to prevent a Communist takeover of Europe. These theses are advanced not by fanatics or extremists, but by senior West German politicians and internationally respected historians. In Hitler's Shadow examines the debate, placing it within the context of West German politics, and tries to reach a balanced and reasoned conclusion. The new revisionism does not, Evans argues, succeed in making its case, and many of the neoconservative theses bear a disturbing resemblance to arguments first put forward by the Nazis themselves. The survival and strengthening of democracy in West Germany, Evans argues, require an honest and open confrontation with the Nazi past."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
In the search for the causes of the First World War and the origins of Hitler’s ‘Third Reich’, the attention of historians has turned increasingly towards the development of German society under Kaiser Wilhelm II. These ten essays, first published in 1978, introduced interpretations of Wilhelmine Germany to an English-speaking audience and contributed towards the discussion of these interpretations that were taking place amongst German historians. This book is ideal for student of history, particularly German history.
This print textbook is available for students to rent for their classes. The Pearson print rental program provides students with affordable access to learning materials, so they come to class ready to succeed. For courses in technical and pre-engineering technical programs or other programs for which coverage of basic mathematics is required. The best-seller in technical mathematics gets an “Oh, wow!” update The 11th Edition of Basic Technical Mathematics with Calculus is a bold revision of this classic bestseller. The text now sports an engaging full-color design, and new co-author Rich Evans has introduced a wealth of relevant applications and improvements, many based on user feedback. The text is supported by an all-new online graphing calculator manual, accessible at point-of-use via short URLs. The new edition continues to feature a vast number of applications from technical and pre-engineering fields–including computer design, electronics, solar energy, lasers fiber optics, and the environment–and aims to develop your understanding of mathematical methods without simply providing a collection of formulas. The authors start the text by establishing a solid background in algebra and trigonometry, recognizing the importance of these topics for success in solving applied problems. Also available with MyLab Math. MyLab™ Math is an online homework, tutorial, and assessment program designed to work with this text to engage students and improve results. Within its structured environment, students practice what they learn, test their understanding, and pursue a personalized study plan that helps them absorb course material and understand difficult concepts. The MyLab Math course features hundreds of new algorithmic exercises, tutorial videos, and PowerPoint slides. NOTE: You are purchasing a standalone product; MyLab™ Math does not come packaged with this content. If you would like to purchase both the physical text and MyLab Math, search for: 0134769600 / 9780134769608 Basic Technical Mathematics with Calculus plus MyLab Math with Pearson eText - Title-Specific Access Card Package Package consists of: 013443773X / 9780134437736 Basic Technical Mathematics with Calculus 0134764730 / 9780134764733 MyLab Math with Pearson eText - Standalone Access Card - for Basic Technical Mathematics with Calculus
The fact thatRethinking Germanywill force historians to reconsider their views, if not to discard them altogether, makes it a valuable addition to the literature."--The Historian "...for its many highlights and for Evans's brilliant style it should be required reading in any advanced German history course."--German Studies Review
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